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Graduate Theses and Dissertations

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Impact Of Baseline Cognition On Dual-Task Performance: Tracking Verbal Accuracy And Fluency In Adults At Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease, Rebecca Nicole Frederichs Jul 2026

Impact Of Baseline Cognition On Dual-Task Performance: Tracking Verbal Accuracy And Fluency In Adults At Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease, Rebecca Nicole Frederichs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is increasing in prevalence as life expectancy continues to rise, highlighting the need for sensitive measures to detect early cognitive changes. This study examined the effects of baseline cognitive status on dual-task performance over time, in terms of dual-task cost, verbal fluency, and verbal accuracy in older adults at risk for AD. This study utilized a quantitative secondary analysis of the longitudinal dataset, the Digital, Cognitive, Multi-Domain Alzheimer Risk Velocity (DC-MARVel) study (Gray et al., 2022). Participants were categorized into low, medium, or high cognitive tertiles based on baseline Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status …


Seasonality Of Bovine Respiratory Disease Incidence, Nasal Temperatures, And The Nasal Microbiome In Receiving Beef Cattle: Understanding The Risk Of The Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex, Robin Ashley Cheek Jul 2026

Seasonality Of Bovine Respiratory Disease Incidence, Nasal Temperatures, And The Nasal Microbiome In Receiving Beef Cattle: Understanding The Risk Of The Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex, Robin Ashley Cheek

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) has persistently been the leading cause of morbidity of beef cattle in the United States. Season has been directly associated with respiratory disease incidence and is likely a proxy for weather conditions, which vary by geographical location. The nose is one of the first points of contact between the outside environment and inside the body. The nasal microbiome and its relationship with BRD have been heavily studied within beef cattle, but there are not yet any studies to determine if the environment within the nasal cavity has a role to play in this mechanism. This dissertation …


Soft Urea Nitridation Of Tantalum-Based Thin Films For Oxynitride Synthesis, Rishabh Srivastava Jul 2026

Soft Urea Nitridation Of Tantalum-Based Thin Films For Oxynitride Synthesis, Rishabh Srivastava

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rising global energy consumption and the transition toward low-carbon technologies place new demands on functional materials. Particularly, semiconductors that convert sunlight directly into chemical fuels with high efficiency and long operational lifetimes. The synthesis of visible light active tantalum oxynitride (TaON) thin films for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting typically requires ammonolysis with pressurized NH3 gas, which presents persistent barriers in safety and phase selectivity. In this work, a soft urea ammonolysis route was employed in which solid urea was employed as an in-situ nitrogen source inside a vacuum-sealed reactor. The finite urea mass establishes a self-limiting nitrogen chemical potential that …


Item Response Theory Evaluation Of Mental Health Sentiment Scales, Muhammad Amzad Hossain Jul 2026

Item Response Theory Evaluation Of Mental Health Sentiment Scales, Muhammad Amzad Hossain

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mental health is an essential part of overall well-being. Accurate measurement of constructs such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction is extremely important in research and practice. Traditional approaches based on Classical Test Theory (CTT) are limited. They rely on total test scores and assume constant measurement error across individuals. They may not reflect true variability in measurement precision (Zein & Akhtar, 2025; Marvianto, 2023). In contrast, Item Response Theory (IRT) provides an advanced approach by examining item-level performance. It models the relationship between latent traits and responses (Zein & Akhtar, 2025 ). To address these limitations, this study …


Beyond Semantic Matching: Integrating Graph Structures, Boolean Logic, And Interactive Aggregation In Modern Retrieval, Quan Mai Jul 2026

Beyond Semantic Matching: Integrating Graph Structures, Boolean Logic, And Interactive Aggregation In Modern Retrieval, Quan Mai

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Information Retrieval (IR) systems have achieved remarkable success in semantic understanding; however, they continue to struggle with complex logical reasoning, structural interactions, and dynamic aggregation. This dissertation presents a comprehensive framework to enhance the structural, logical, and interactive capabilities of language models and retrieval systems across four progressive studies. First, we address the challenge of modeling dynamic conversational logic in online debates. We introduce a Sequence Graph Network (SGN) that captures the temporal and interactive exchange of ideas—such as counterarguments and reinforcements—by updating node features sequentially through a novel Sequence Graph Attention (SGA) layer. …


Evaluation Of Metabolizable Energy And Phosphorus Availability In Conventional And Fractionated Dry-Grind Corn Co-Products For Poultry, Luke Parisi Jul 2026

Evaluation Of Metabolizable Energy And Phosphorus Availability In Conventional And Fractionated Dry-Grind Corn Co-Products For Poultry, Luke Parisi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the availability of energy and phosphorous (P) in dry-grind corn co-products in chickens was assessed. In the first objective, the determination of energy availability, both a precision-fed rooster assay and an ad libitum fed broiler chicken assay were used in order to elucidate energy availability in corn co-products. There were 8 samples of corn fermented protein (CFP) and 2 samples of conventional distillers dried grains with solubles (CDDGS) evaluated for metabolizable energy (ME). The CFP contained a mean CP and crude fat of 55 and 3.7% (DM basis), respectively, compared with 30 …


I Can’T Fight This Feeling Anymore: Investigating The Influence Of Cognitive Emotion-Related Impulsivity On Behavioral Impulsivity Through The Lens Of Emotion Regulation In Daily Life, Dylan Shelton Jul 2026

I Can’T Fight This Feeling Anymore: Investigating The Influence Of Cognitive Emotion-Related Impulsivity On Behavioral Impulsivity Through The Lens Of Emotion Regulation In Daily Life, Dylan Shelton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotion-related impulsivity is a transdiagnostic risk factor that is seen across a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Traditionally, emotion-related impulsivity has been studied at the trait level, reflecting that it is something that someone has rather than something that they do. However, recent studies have highlighted the importance of viewing emotion-related impulsivity as a dynamic process that occurs in response to momentary emotional experiences. However, it is less clear about the influence of attentional and evaluative processes on downstream behavioral responses that may be aimed at rapidly regulating emotion. This study aimed to investigate emotion-related impulsivity through the lens of …


Potassium Fertilization Timing And Critical Stalk Potassium Concentration As Tools To Improve Corn Production, Gabriela Andrade Leite Mengez Jul 2026

Potassium Fertilization Timing And Critical Stalk Potassium Concentration As Tools To Improve Corn Production, Gabriela Andrade Leite Mengez

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Potassium (K) is a common yield-limiting nutrient in Mid-Southern U.S. corn (Zea mays L.) production, emphasizing the importance of effective diagnostic tools to support fertilizer decision-making. This study integrated two approaches to improve K management in irrigated corn systems: (i) evaluating K fertilization timing to identify in-season opportunities for correcting K deficiency, and (ii) developing a corn stalk-based diagnostic test to assess end-of-season K and nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N) status and fertilizer adequacy. Seven (2024-2025) and eight (2023-2024) field trials were conducted across Arkansas for the K application timing and stalk testing studies, respectively. For the K timing study, fertilizer-K (112 kg …


A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial Examining The Efficacy Of Group-Based Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (Pcit) For Autistic Youth: A Mixed-Method Design, Julia L. Kiefer Jul 2026

A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial Examining The Efficacy Of Group-Based Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (Pcit) For Autistic Youth: A Mixed-Method Design, Julia L. Kiefer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Caregivers of autistic children experience a myriad of barriers when seeking psychotherapy for their children including a lack of family-based treatment options, lengthy waitlists, and limited access to specialized therapists. As the demand for both accessible and affordable mental healthcare for autistic youth increases, group-based interventions may be a useful alternative to more time intensive individual treatment options – allowing for multiple clients to be seen at once. The present study examined the efficacy of an adapted evidence-based intervention, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, to be delivered in a brief, group-based format with families of autistic youth. Driven by input from a …


Benchmarking Current Progress In 3d Content Generation, Vuong Ho Jul 2026

Benchmarking Current Progress In 3d Content Generation, Vuong Ho

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, 3D generation has rapidly advanced with the development of powerful generative AI models capable of producing high-quality 3D content from various modalities, including text, images, and multi-view inputs. These advancements have significantly accelerated progress in applications such as gaming, virtual reality, robotics, and digital content creation. Despite this progress, there is still a lack of standardized and fair benchmarking protocols for evaluating 3D generation methods. Existing approaches are often assessed under inconsistent experimental settings, using different datasets, evaluation metrics, and processing pipelines. Such inconsistencies make reliable and objective comparisons difficult, limiting our understanding of the strengths and …


Essays In Whistleblowing, Crime, And Experimental Economics, Danielle Nickeisha Purcell Jul 2026

Essays In Whistleblowing, Crime, And Experimental Economics, Danielle Nickeisha Purcell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three essays on how institutional strength, enforcement practices, and cognitive load affect behavior. The first essay presents a laboratory experiment that varies the extent to which an individual in a position of authority can interfere with the outcome of whistleblowing, holding all other monetary incentives fixed. Strengthening institutions raises whistleblowing rates, lowers theft, and reduces the rate of bribe offers, while leaving authorities’ acceptance of bribes unchanged when they face no punishment for accepting them. The second essay studies the end of stop and frisk in Chicago following the 2015 ACLU-CPD settlement agreement, which cut annual investigatory …


Iterative Generation Of Feature-Based Cad Models Using An Llm With Domain Specific Constraints, Ammon I. Hepworth Jul 2026

Iterative Generation Of Feature-Based Cad Models Using An Llm With Domain Specific Constraints, Ammon I. Hepworth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper presents a method to generate feature-based parametric mechanical CAD models from text input. The method uses domain-specific constraints (DSCs) to guide a large language model (LLM) in the generation of scripts to build models from the CAD API. It also presents a framework for an iterative text-based system that produces parametric CAD models. The method was implemented by developing DSCs for FreeCAD and Open AI GPT-5.2 and incorporated into a web-based software application which generates models that can be visualized with an interactive viewer after each iteration. Tests were run comparing various models with and without this method. …


Decoration Of Lactic Acid Bacterium By Exploiting In Vitro Sortase A Transpeptidase, Faisal Hamd Alqhtani Jul 2026

Decoration Of Lactic Acid Bacterium By Exploiting In Vitro Sortase A Transpeptidase, Faisal Hamd Alqhtani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Attaching a drug module to the surface of lactic acid bacteria was the main aim of this dissertation, and it was achieved. By using the Sortase A mechanism, the drug module (green fluorescent protein fused to the LPETG motif) was anchored to the LAB surface. To reach the final results, this dissertation will describe the process that I undertake to achieve the end goal. Modifying media, producing pure enzymes with less impurity, and reducing the protease activity in E. coli BL21 were all described in this five-chapter dissertation. Keywords: drug delivery, lactic acid bacteria, green fluorescent protein, sortase A, fusion …


The Gravity Of The Ukraine War: Measuring Conflict Impacts On European Grain Trade, Stefan Bonchis Jul 2026

The Gravity Of The Ukraine War: Measuring Conflict Impacts On European Grain Trade, Stefan Bonchis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the heterogeneous structural disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine on the European Union’s agricultural trade architecture, focusing on three critical commodities: wheat, maize, and sunflower seeds. Employing a structural gravity model framework across all 27 EU Member States, the study evaluates two conflict episodes, the 2014 Crimea annexation and the 2022 full-scale invasion, to identify the net beneficiaries and heavily impacted nations within the EU agricultural trade network. The empirical strategy utilizes a dual-test design to capture the full scope of the disruption. Test A (Ukraine towards the EU trade) reveals a distinct geographic logic in …


Chaotropic And Kosmotropic Effects Of Brines On Protein Structure: Habitability Across The Solar System, Shelby Dawn Osborne Jul 2026

Chaotropic And Kosmotropic Effects Of Brines On Protein Structure: Habitability Across The Solar System, Shelby Dawn Osborne

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Salts exhibit unique and specific effects on biomolecular structure depending on the physical nature of the salt (ion density, formation of hydration shells, direct binding to protein). This thesis implements biochemical, thermodynamic, and computational methods to investigate how the nature of the salt effects protein structure, which aids in defining the habitability of various brine solutions. By using simple proteins and solar system relevant salts, we inspect the physical reactions of proteins to these saltwater environments to understand which salts stabilize or destabilize protein structure. Several methods of experimentation are utilized to provide an understanding of the interaction relevant to …


Statistical Machine Learning For Calibrating Climate Model Wind Fields., Augustine Ouru Jul 2026

Statistical Machine Learning For Calibrating Climate Model Wind Fields., Augustine Ouru

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates statistical calibration methods for wind data from Global Climate Models (GCMs), with emphasis on wind speed and wind direction. The analysis uses 30 years of daily observed and GCM wind records from 9 spatial locations in the South East USA. Wind is represented in polar coordinates, but also often modeled in Cartesian coordinates. Four calibration models are compared: a marginal wind speed model, an independent Cartesian model. The calibration models are based on semi-parametric quantile regression, a flexible conditional density estimator fitted using neural networks. The neural network objective functions are optimized using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) …


Financial Independence And Adult Role Expectations Of College Students In Emerging Adulthood, Elizabeth Ampomaa Amoako Jul 2026

Financial Independence And Adult Role Expectations Of College Students In Emerging Adulthood, Elizabeth Ampomaa Amoako

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The transition to adulthood has become increasingly prolonged and individualized. This raises questions about how college students conceptualize their readiness for long-term adult roles. Marriage and parenthood remain culturally meaningful markers of adult status, and expectations regarding the timing of these transitions offer a window into how emerging adults integrate identity development and financial considerations into life planning. Grounded in Arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood and Luyckx and colleagues’ multidimensional model of identity formation, the present study examined how identity processes and financial independence relate to college students’ anticipated timing of marriage and parenthood. Data were drawn from 247 undergraduate …


Tipping In The Digital Age: Comparing Group And Individual Tipping Behavior Across Cashless Payments, Akosua Sayer Koduah Jul 2026

Tipping In The Digital Age: Comparing Group And Individual Tipping Behavior Across Cashless Payments, Akosua Sayer Koduah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tipping has long been central to the U.S. hospitality industry, where it provides a substantial share of service workers’ income. What was once a cash-based practice is now increasingly mediated through digital platforms such as card readers, QR codes, and peer-to-peer apps. These systems introduce features such as visibility of the decision, preset defaults, and group payment options that reshape how customers decide whether and how much to tip. While traditional tipping has been widely studied, research on digital restaurant tipping remains limited. This study focuses on two underexplored mechanisms: visibility (whether staff can observe the decision) and group context …


Identification Of Conditionally Essential Genes Required For Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium Adaptation To The Chicken Cecal Extract Through Ex Vivo Modeling And Transposon Insertion Sequencing, Deborah Bukola Olubanjo Jul 2026

Identification Of Conditionally Essential Genes Required For Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium Adaptation To The Chicken Cecal Extract Through Ex Vivo Modeling And Transposon Insertion Sequencing, Deborah Bukola Olubanjo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) remains a major foodborne pathogen associated with chicken, where it can persist in the intestinal tract without overt disease and contribute to zoonotic transmission. The chicken cecum represents a complex ecological niche shaped by microbial competition, host-derived substrates, short-chain fatty acids, oxygen limitation, extracellular components, and diverse metabolic gradients. Although transposon insertion sequencing (Tn-seq) has been widely used to define bacterial fitness determinants, limited work has examined genome-wide adaptation of S. Typhimurium in chicken ceca-derived ex vivo systems that preserve key features of the avian cecal environment. This dissertation investigated conditionally essential genes required …


Ontogenetic Variation In Palatal Morphology In Tufted And Untufted Capuchins, Valerie Contreras Jul 2026

Ontogenetic Variation In Palatal Morphology In Tufted And Untufted Capuchins, Valerie Contreras

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT Craniofacial variation and its relation to diet have been widely examined, but with less attention exclusively to the palate. Previous studies have shown that groups consuming a more resistant diet exhibit morphological differences in the craniofacial skeleton, including a longer and wider palate when compared to groups consuming a less resistant diet; similar patterns have been observed among captive vs. wild populations. Here, I present a 3D morphometric analysis of palatal ontogeny in tufted (Sapajus spp.) and untufted (Cebus spp.) capuchins and compare captive vs. free-ranging semi-provisioned Sapajus. Tufted capuchins are known to consume more mechanically resistant foods compared …


Automated Machine Learning And Satellite Image Data Fusion For Monitoring Water Quality In Mosaicked Landscapes, Sahar Rezaei Jul 2026

Automated Machine Learning And Satellite Image Data Fusion For Monitoring Water Quality In Mosaicked Landscapes, Sahar Rezaei

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the ecological, economic, and social importance of inland water bodies, they are increasingly impacted by human and natural drivers. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) and total suspended solids (TSS) are key indicators of water quality, and elevated concentrations pose significant ecological and public health risks. The spatiotemporal dynamics of these variables remain insufficiently understood in major river systems, including the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) and the Illinois River Basin (IRB). While in situ measurements provide accurate observations, they are costly and offer limited spatial and temporal coverage, restricting basin-scale monitoring. Remote sensing offers a powerful alternative; however, single-sensor approaches are …


Corn Yield And Tissue-Potassium Response To Potassium Fertilization, Wyatt A. Rongey Jul 2026

Corn Yield And Tissue-Potassium Response To Potassium Fertilization, Wyatt A. Rongey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Potassium (K) deficiency is an increasingly important yield-limiting factor for irrigated corn (Zea mays L.) in Arkansas, where below optimum soil-test K (STK) acreage is increasing and visible K deficiencies or hidden K hunger threaten yield and profitability. Improving K management for modern, high-yielding hybrids require refining soil-test-based fertilizer recommendations and defining growth-stage-specific tissue-K sufficiency ranges that diagnose deficiency before irrecoverable yield loss occurs. This research aimed to i) quantify corn grain yield and yield component responses to K fertilization across a wide range of STK levels; ii) determine the frequency and magnitude of agronomically and economically meaningful yield responses …


Remote Sensing-Derived Urban Heat Islands And Land Surface Phenology, Raihan Sorker Jul 2026

Remote Sensing-Derived Urban Heat Islands And Land Surface Phenology, Raihan Sorker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thermal remote sensing has been widely applied to characterize urban heat islands (UHI) and their relationship to land use; however, few studies have explored the relationship between land surface temperature (LST) and land surface phenology (LSP). This study focused on the relationship between LST and LSP in the metropolitan region of Kansas City, Missouri, USA using Landsat 8 satellite images from 2015 to 2024. Thermal and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series were processed using Google Earth Engine to derive annual LST metrics alongside phenological indicators including timing of green-up and senescence as well as growing season length. Individually, …


Localizing And Repairing Backdoor-Sensitive Layers In Pre-Trained Language Models For Secure Fine-Tuning, Sunanda Das Jul 2026

Localizing And Repairing Backdoor-Sensitive Layers In Pre-Trained Language Models For Secure Fine-Tuning, Sunanda Das

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Task-agnostic backdoor attacks can contaminate pre-trained language models (PLMs) in a way that survives downstream adaptation, even under full fine-tuning, making it difficult for practitioners to trust third-party checkpoints. Existing defenses often rely on privileged assumptions (e.g., access to poisoned data or trigger/target knowledge), thereby limiting their applicability in realistic settings. We present DiSec (Disentanglement of potentially adversarial weights for Secure fine-tuning), a robust and label-efficient purification framework that uses only clean auxiliary text and does not rely on downstream supervision or attack signatures. DiSec elicits model-internal signals from this clean data to separate suspicious parameter components that are inconsistent …


Alternative Methods To Improve Livestock Performance While Grazing Low-Quality Forages., Ivan Raynard Thomas Jr Jul 2026

Alternative Methods To Improve Livestock Performance While Grazing Low-Quality Forages., Ivan Raynard Thomas Jr

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stocker cattle producers in the southeastern part of the U.S. heavily depend on traditional forages such as bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon] pastures during the warm season for grazing. Summer annual forages offer stocker cattle operations a valuable alternative source of forage. These forages have high yield potential and can help extend the grazing season. This is particularly beneficial during the summer months when traditional forage sources may be limited. Warm-season annual grasses may experience a decrease in crude protein concentrations during late summer and early fall. As a result, it may be necessary to find alternative sources of crude protein or …


A Dual Analysis Of Generic Stereotypes, Shaoneng Xu Jul 2026

A Dual Analysis Of Generic Stereotypes, Shaoneng Xu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my thesis, I provide a dual-analysis on generic stereotypes, including a semantic analysis that focuses on the truth conditions of generic sentences as well as a pragmatic analysis that focuses on the normative force of generic stereotypes. The thesis contains two parts: In the first chapter, I make a semantic analysis of generic stereotypes based on Lemeire’s (2020) paper. I unpack the general concept of generic sentences and their truth-conditions. I also discuss Lemeire’s rebuttal strategies to offensive generic stereotypes, and add to it by indicating that generics can also carry normative forces. In the second chapter, I make …


Evaluation Of A High Protein Low Oligosaccharide Soybean Meal In Poultry Production, Kasey Matusik Jul 2026

Evaluation Of A High Protein Low Oligosaccharide Soybean Meal In Poultry Production, Kasey Matusik

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of feeding a high protein, low oligosaccharide soybean meal to optimize poultry nutrition by the effects of feeding the soybean meal to roosters, broiler chickens, and turkeys. Two research objectives were evaluated to determine whether high protein, low oligosaccharide soybean meal would have increased nutritional value. The first objective assessed the metabolizable energy (ME) content of a high protein, low oligosaccharide soybean meal compared to a conventional soybean meal. Using roosters, broiler chickens, and turkey poults, three bioassays were conducted to evaluate the ME of the soybean meal. Results demonstrated …


The Role Of Speculators In The Agricultural Futures Market And Their Impact On Prices, Clement Asamoah Jul 2026

The Role Of Speculators In The Agricultural Futures Market And Their Impact On Prices, Clement Asamoah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study evaluates the impact of speculative activity on agricultural commodity returns, specifically in the corn, soybeans, rice, and oats markets. The study also analyzed the influence commodity returns have on speculative positions. Weekly data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were used as a proxy for speculative activity, and futures data were also retrieved from Barchart. Vector Autoregressive models and the Granger Causality tests were estimated to identify the relationships between returns and speculation. The paper found that speculative positions do not Granger-cause returns over the course of a week except for rice Tuesday results, which recorded a statistically …


Making Meaning In Gender Affirming Therapy: Voices Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Individuals, Shelby Freeman Jul 2026

Making Meaning In Gender Affirming Therapy: Voices Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Individuals, Shelby Freeman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people frequently seek out counseling services and experience greater mental health difficulties than the general population. Oppressive political and social structures are often cited as a main contributor to mental health disparities. As antitransgender laws and sentiments increase in the U.S., the likelihood of mental health professionals encountering TGD clients will also increase. This requires specific competencies in how to provide effective gender-affirming mental health services. Affirming MHPs are more accessible to TGD clients now than ever due to increases in provider training and improved attitudes. However, previous research revealed that MHPs who identify as …


Advancing Social Media Analytics And Personalized Generation Via Transfer Learning, Discourse-Aware Modeling, And Collaborative Modeling, Gibson Nkhata Jul 2026

Advancing Social Media Analytics And Personalized Generation Via Transfer Learning, Discourse-Aware Modeling, And Collaborative Modeling, Gibson Nkhata

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social media platforms have become central to information exchange, shaping public opinion across social, political, and economic domains. However, the massive volume of user-generated content, combined with its informal, nuanced, and often noisy nature, presents significant challenges for automated analysis and generation. Tasks such as stance detection, rumor verification, and personalized content generation are further complicated by sarcasm, evolving discourse structures, and diverse user preferences. Addressing these challenges requires models that can effectively leverage linguistic nuance, conversational dynamics, and collaborative user signals. Transfer learning has emerged as a powerful paradigm for improving performance in low-resource and complex language understanding tasks. …